All the Arts, All the Time

Edward Albee wins MacDowell Medal for lifetime achievement

April 12, 2011 | 4:12
pm

Edward Albee has won nearly every artistic award available to an American playwright. Add one more. On Tuesday, the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire announced that it is awarding Albee its Edward MacDowell Medal for lifetime contributions to his field.

Albee, 83, wrote such plays as "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," "A Delicate Balance," "Three Tall Women" and "The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?" He has won three Tony Awards — including a lifetime achievement award — and three Pulitzer Prizes during his lengthy career. He also received the National Medal of Arts in 1996.

Albee's most recent work includes "At Home at the Zoo" — a reworking of his play "Peter & Jerry" — and "Me, Myself & I."

The playwright appeared at UCLA' Royce Hall in 2009, giving a talk about his career and plays. "Every play and playwright has something to teach me," he told Times theater critic Charles McNulty. "Bad playwrights tell me what not to do. Good ones tell me how to accomplish what I really want to do more intelligently."